Aitor Karanka knew Middlesbrough would bounce back

Aitor Karanka was never in any doubt that his Middlesbrough team would bounce back after a weekend defeat, and they did so by beating Millwall on Tuesday night.

Boro's 3-0 win against the relegation-threatened Lions came after they fell to a 2-0 defeat against Sheffield Wednesday at the weekend.

Goals from three strikers – Patrick Bamford, Kike and Jelle Vossen – secured the comfortable midweek victory and it moved them back to the summit of the Sky Bet Championship table.

Karanka told Middlesbrough's official website: “I didn’t have any doubt the players would give this reaction and everything was perfect. It was a very difficult game after our defeat on Saturday and I’m very proud of all of them.

“This was our eighth game in less than a month and Saturday will be the ninth, so I can understand the players being tired. Not tired in their legs, but it’s true that after a lot of games it’s mentally tiring.

“I’m very pleased because all of my strikers scored goals. We needed their goals because if you look at the teams below us in the table, their strikers are scoring.

“I knew when our strikers start to score goals that it is going to make the difference because we’re a very consistent team – all of them have scored and we’ve won the game.”